The University of Toronto’s Fisher Library recently acquired (separately and fortuitously) paired items, print and manuscript, which document the ongoing life of a text: a first edition of the magnificent 1542 folio edition of Leonhart Fuchs’s De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes and an unusual bound volume, in octavo, entitled Traité de botanique, containing the full page illustrations probably from a sixteenth century Basel edition of Fuchs, interleaved with notes and additional hand-drawn illustrations dating to about 1740.
About the Collections
See detailed information about member institutions and their collections. Select a member institution below to visit its main collections or library page.
We have compiled a list of digital collections and resources from our member institutions. We will continue to update this list as we receive more information.
California Institute of Technology
Major research collections available remotely:
- George Ellery Hale Papers: https://digital.archives.caltech.edu/hale
- Donald A. Glaser Papers: http://glaser.library.caltech.
edu - Paul B. MacCready Papers: http://maccready.library.caltech.edu
- Caltech Archives Oral History Project: http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu
Reference inquiries: archives@caltech.edu
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Digital image library: https://www.cppdigitallibrary.org/
S. Weir Mitchell papers: https://mitchell.cppdigitallibrary.org/s/mitchell/page/intro
The College of Physicians is a partner with the Medical Heritage Library, which has a significant collection of digitzed material: http://www.medicalheritage.org/search-2/
Duke University
Duke Digital Collections: https://
Online Exhibits: https://library.
Instruction/Digital Activities & Assignments: https://library.
Contact for research assistance: AskRL@duke.edu
Hagley Museum and Library
Finding aids: https://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/
Digital archives: https://digital.hagley.org/
Digital exhibits: https://www.hagley.org/research/digital-exhibits
Oral history collections: https://digital.hagley.org/oralhistory?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=1e4410717a82cc925873&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0
Newsletter: https://www.hagley.org/research/research-news-events/news/all-news
Scholars' projects: https://www.hagley.org/research/news/scholar-projects
Stories from the Stacks podcast: https://www.hagley.org/research/programs/stories-stacks
Millrace podcast: https://www.hagley.org/millrace
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQPQhnwuLEyoJ1LanZi2cA
Harvard University
Harvard Digital Collections: Linking to over 6 million items from Harvard’s collections.
Curiosity: curated guides to selected digitized collections at Harvard.
Colonial North America project: link to approximately 650,000 digitized pages related to 17th and 18th century North American holdings at Harvard.
Biodiversity Heritage Library, with a direct link to the Botany Libraries’ contributions and the Ernst Mayr (Museum of Comparative Zoology) Library’s contributions to the BHL.
Huntington Library
Research questions may be submitted to reference@huntington.org
Library Company of Philadelphia
Collections search: https://digital.librarycompany.org/discovery
Digital exhibits: https://librarycompany.org/research/exhibits/
Fireside chats: https://librarycompany.org/fireside-chats/
Talking in the Library podcast: https://librarycompany.org/talking-in-the-library/
Linda Hall Library
The Linda Hall Library's digital collections provide access to hundreds of rare books and periodicals exploring the history of science and technology from the 15th century to the present. Astronomy, mathematics, earth sciences, and natural history are all well-represented in the Library's online holdings. Historians of engineering will also find much to explore in the Library's collection of 19th century railroad journals and the A.B. Nichols Panama Canal Collection. The Library adds new items to its digital collections on a regular basis. Noteworthy recent additions include Samuel Morse’s journal, Thomas Edison’s instructions to operate an electric power plant, and an article on radioactivity by Marie Curie annotated in her own hand.
To begin reviewing the Linda Hall Library’s digital collections, visit http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/. Please note that the Library is currently investing in a new content management system and would welcome visitor feedback on the organization of its online resources. For further information, email the Library’s Vice President for Research and Scholarship, Benjamin Gross (grossb@lindahall.org).
New York Academy of Medicine
Stay connected and access resources: https://www.nyam.org/library/stay-connected-update-resources-nyam-library/
Newberry Library
Digital resources: http://www.newberry.org/digital-newberry
Online collection: http://digcoll.newberry.org/#/
Contact a librarian: https://www.newberry.org/contact-librarian
Rockefeller Archive Center
Archival material is available to all researchers through DIMES (dimes.rockarch.org), RAC's online finding aid system. When browsing finding aids, digitized materials will appear with a camera icon. To a general search for digitized materials in DIMES, go to: https://dimes.rockarch.org/xtf/search
Significant online collections include:
- A large portion of the Rockefeller Foundation officer diaries have been digitized (in DIMES, these finding aids appear, arranged alphabetically by officer's last name as FA391, FA392, FA393, FA394.)
- The vast majority of records of the Foundation for Child Development (1898-1998) have been digitized. Identified in DIMES as FA019.
- The RAC created a digital history website for the centennial of the Rockefeller Foundation. It includes essays, photographs and extensive digitized documents from RAC. Available online at https://rockfound.rockarch.org/.
- The RAC recently launched RE:source, RAC's storytelling platform, highlighting the history of philanthropy through RAC's collection. Available online at: https://resource.rockarch.org/.
RAC has a very extensive set of research reports submitted by RAC research stipend awardees, providing broad insight into RAC collections and their historic themes. Available online at: http://rockarch.issuelab.org/?coverage=&author=&funder=&publisher=&wikitopic_categories=&keywords=&pubdate_start_year=1&pubdate_end_year=1&sort=&categories=
With specific questions, researchers should feel free to contact Lee R. Hiltzik, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, who serves as RAC's coordinator with the Consortium. Lee can be reached at: lhiltzik@rockarch.org
For general questions about archival access and use, researchers should consult https://rockarch.org/collections/access-and-request-materials/
University of Oklahoma
Digital collection: https://repository.ou.edu/
History of Science Portrait Collection: https://digital.libraries.ou.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/LPC
Twitter: Search@OU_Libraries & @PalmeriJoAnn
Contact for research questions: JoAnn Palmeri (palmerij@ou.edu) Research Coordinator & Librarian, History of Science Collections, OU Libraries
Yale University
Online resources for history of medicine research: https://guides.library.yale.edu/histmedonline
Digital collections: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/digital
Contact for research questions: Melissa Grafe, melissa.grafe@yale.edu
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has recently processed the diaries of Deforest P. Willard, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon from Philadelphia who served in the U.S. Army during World War I in Britain and France, and the records of the American Society for Testing Materials, an organization founded in 1898 that helped to develop industry standards for steel used in rail construction. More information can be found here.
The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania) recently acquired 58 manuscript codices from the library of the Duke of Northumberland. The manuscripts were originally collected by General Charles Rainsford (1728-1809), an 18th century gentleman scientist, and cover subjects such as alchemy, astrology, Cabbala and Tarot. A portion of the collection is comprised of texts copied or acquired by Rainsford from the Jesuit College at Naples at its dissolution in the late 18th century.
New acquisitions Daniel Bohn, MD, and Ralph Bohn, MD papers, circa 1905-1919 The Legacy Center, Drexel University .8 linear feet Papers of Daniel Bohn, M.D. (d. 1963, Hahnemann Medical College, 1894), who practiced in Altoona, PA, and his son Ralph W. Bohn, MD (Hahnemann Medical College, 1924), a psychiatrist practicing in New York (Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital).
The American Philosophical Society has recently made newly processed resources available to researchers, including the following:
- "The World Turned Topsyturvy": Thomas Paine in Print and Ink
- James Van Gundia Neel Papers
- Colonization in the Foulke Papers
- Of Hatches and Haste: A Conservation Adventure
- The Papers of Frank Siebert (1913-1998)
- Read more about these collections here.
The Chemical Heritage Foundation has added a number of new items to its collections. In the fall of 2013 CHF made one of the largest and most important acquisitions in its thirty-year history: a collection of early alchemy manuscripts. Of the nine manuscripts in the collection, seven date to the fifteenth century, some as early as the 1430s. Among them is Petrus Bonus’s Pretiosa margarita novella (The Precious New Pearl), ca. 1450–1480—one of only six known complete copies of that work in existence.
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania recently made the following acquisitions: Dr. Robert Howland Chase papers, 1826-1926 (Collection 3733) Summary An expert in psychology, Massachusetts native Dr. Robert Howland Chase worked at a number of facilities in Pennsylvania, including the State Hospital for the Insane in Norristown and the Friends' Hospital in Frankford, Philadelphia. Description Dr. Robert Howland Chase was a psychologist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in Massachusetts but educated at Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr.
by Elizabeth Bennett, Librarian for History and History of Science, Princeton University
In 2012, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania purchased the papers of veterinarian George F. Parry and his family. George F. Parry (1838-1886) of Bucks County, PA, was one of the first veterinarians to receive professional veterinary training in the United States. He graduated from the Boston Veterinary Institute in 1859, served as a veterinary surgeon with the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry during the Civil War, and owned a farm and conducted a private practice in Newtown, Pennsylvania, from shortly after the war until his death at age 48. George married Sarah E.
Drexel University Libraries announces the acquisition of a collection of faculty papers documenting the rise of microcomputing at Drexel. Tom Hewett, Professor of Psychology and Computer Science, began teaching at Drexel in 1973.